Designing a great website is harder than it looks. Even the simplest website is still a complex and complicated machine, often built from scratch, pixel by pixel, from the ground up. Being aware of even a small number of potential hurdles can significantly ease the process. Below we reveal three potential mistakes to avoid when designing a website.
Allowing too many cooks in the kitchen
Web design by its very nature is a collaborative process. Website stakeholders and end-users as well as designers and developers, all contribute to the final outcome. Yet multiple participants offering conflicting viewpoints and pursuing differing goals, can result in a web design that pleases no one.
While it is important to account for the needs of all participants, it is also imperative that the design process not get bogged down or derailed by them.
Developing a strategy to deal with the “too many cooks” scenario is critical to a successful outcome. For example, one strategy could be to agree beforehand that while all viewpoints are welcome, differing goals and viewpoints must be resolved as they arise, before a project can continue. That way participants understand that no agreement does not mean disagreement it means no progress.
Over-designing
It’s a natural impulse to want a website that is as feature rich as possible. Yet the most successful websites do only what is required and nothing more. Too many websites have pages that are never visited, contact forms that are never submitted, and slideshows with slides no one sees.
Over-designing can lead to a website that overwhelms visitors instead of assisting them and becomes unduly difficult and costly to build, maintain, and support.
Keep it simple and only design what is absolutely necessary.
Forgetting about the end user
A website is built for end users. This seem obvious, but it is easy to forget. Forgetting about the end user during a web project can be as simple as a website owner or designer confusing their goals with end user goals. Either way, losing sight of whether a feature or design element is being added to assist end users or please a website’s owner or designer occurs more often than you might think.
Precisely defining user groups and their goals and then cross checking all decisions against those goals can help a design team stay focused on end users.
Avatar New York is an innovating, award-winning New York web design firm dedicated to providing clients with responsive websites that help grow brands and convert visitors to customers. With an expertise in web development, branding, cloud hosting, mobile app development, and CMS and e-commerce solutions, Avatar New York's top tier designers have the ability to create intelligent websites for any type of business.